The Delirium according to Freud and Jung: Reciprocal contributions and distinctions

Abstract

It would be frivolous to disregard that the debate between Freud and Jung added value to the scientific trajectory of both, even considering the rupture that would define different destinies for their respective theories. The meetings and disagreements between them are analyzed, with rigor and critical ingenuity, by Felipe Jesuíno. Sigmund Freud, in discovering the reality of the unconscious of his patients, was also led to take an interest in his own unconscious; of this work, the founding work of psychoanalysis arose: The Interpretation of Dreams. This, in turn, would ground both a new theory about the human soul and a new method of treating the neuroses, psychoanalysis - based on free association and floating attention, thus breaking definitively with the techniques of psychotherapy based on the suggestive methods, especially the hypnotic. Even in the face of the great resistance or the indifference of the scientific milieu to this new contribution, it was not long before some eminent scholars approached Freud, such interest in the still enigmatic unconscious processes. Such was the case of Jung, who came to join Freud in the early stages of the creation of the psychoanalytic movement, and was welcomed by him with great enthusiasm and with the hope that it would be of fundamental importance to distinguish between psychoanalysis and Judaism, for Jung was not a Jew, unlike many of his early associates. Since then, many meetings, studies, and fruitful correspondence have taken place between them, culminating even with the historical journey that Jung would accompany Freud to the United States of America, where he announced that he had come to plague the American academic community, term for which he designated his discovery. One of the great themes of greater collaboration between the two was that of the psychoses, at the time called by Freud of narcissistic neuroses, given in them the occurrence of the withdrawal of the libido to the self and the consequent abandonment of the outside world. Unlike Freud, who had great experience with the treatment of neuroses, both Jung and Sandor Ferenczi had a clinic with patients affected by schizophrenia and paranoia and held a constant discussion of these cases with Freud, for which he showed great interest. Freud, on the other hand, in writing the case Schreber, based on his biography, advances in the understanding of the paranoia, from meticulous analysis of the triggering and organization of the delirium of Schreber, arriving to draw his grammar. Contribution to date considered fundamental to the clinic for paranoid psychosis. As a result of his master's research in psychology at UFC, under the guidance of Professor Ricardo Barrocas, this book testifies to the commitment to carry out an analysis with epistemological foundations and data of clinical relevance about the reciprocal contributions of these two thinkers, situating them both in the context of the history of psychopathological thought, as well as with regard to the development of two systems of thought, thinking them in relation to the development of the same concept. This results in an analysis whose mark is the ethical sense and respect that the author dedicates in his research work to the two thinkers, which is not usually common, since this discussion is often marked by an overvaluation of the position of a on the other. And this does not occur in the context of this work, since it is based on analytical data carefully treated and that advance us in relation to a more effective and systematic understanding of the main conceptual and methodological axes that generated the rupture between the two collaborators , but also from which of these axes each of them attached the other to his system of thought. This even justifies the fact that both, even after the rupture, show respect for each other's work. The treatment of this problem, besides contributing in the already pointed direction of taking it with due scientific rigor and justice, certainly provides important contributions for future studies on the problematic in question. According to Ricardo Barrocas, who presented the book, it is "a very fruitful text for the discipline of psychopathology", since it provides the treatment of the subject in accordance with "the theoretical fieri of Freud and Jung respectively". To be sure, the book fills a gap about these differences of perspective about the concept of paranoid delirium, its constitution, and its place in the process of reconstructing the world of the paranoid subject. This also leads to the reflection on how such positions leads to the adoption of different clinical positions regarding the treatment of this type of patient.